


I'm Here, You're Safe

by Batfink



Series: Dreamscapes [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A Bit Not Good, Aftermath of Torture, Death Wish, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Loki Feels, Loki Needs a Hug, Loki gets Stitches, M/M, Nightmares, Not Iron Man 3 Compliant, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 04:50:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3314651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batfink/pseuds/Batfink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A beat up and bleeding Loki gets thrown through Tony's window and Tony ends up taking care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kill Me

“Code red, incoming projectile.” Jarvis announced. “Recommend immediate evasive procedures.”

“What?” Tony asked looking up from his StarkPad.

“Sir, get behind the sofa. NOW!” Jarvis demanded.

Tony threw his StarkPad onto the cushion beside where he was sitting and quickly scrambled over the back of the sofa. He hit the floor hard just as he heard his living room window shatter.

Covering his head with his arms Tony hunched behind the sofa and waited for silence. When it came a moment later he uncovered his head. “Jarvis?”

“It appears someone was just thrown through your window, sir.” Jarvis informed him.

“How is that even possible?” Tony asked.

“I have insufficient data on the origin of the person projectile to be able to answer that, sir.” Jarvis responded.

Tony hesitantly peered over the back of the sofa. There was a ball of something, vaguely person shaped lying unmoving on the floor. Slowly, Tony rose from behind the sofa and approached.

Three things became apparent as he approached the person. They were wearing badly ripped black clothes, they were chained and they were bleeding heavily.

Seeing the blood, Tony dashed across towards the person. He swept aside as much of the glass as he could before kneeling down. Rolling the person over, he was shocked to see the bruised and bloodied face of Loki. Loki, unconscious, with his hands cuffed to a chain that wrapped around his waist.

“What the fuck!” Tony exclaimed staring down at him. “What the hell am I supposed to do with you?”

“Kill me.” Loki murmured and Tony's eyes snapped to his face. Loki's eyes were closed but his brow was furrowed from the obvious pain.

“What?” Tony asked.

Loki groaned and his eyes flicked open. “Stark?” He frowned then shook his head. “No more. I'm done. Just kill me. You know I'll never give you what you want. You cannot threaten me with these petty illusions.” His eyes slipped closed again.

Tony stared at Loki in confusion. It wasn't like he hadn't considered killing him in the past. After what he did to Coulson, sure it had crossed Tony's mind, but cold blooded murder? That just wasn't his thing. Plus, Loki had just called him a petty illusion and he wasn't just going to let that pass.

Gently, Tony shook Loki's shoulder, conscious of the blood that was pooling on his floor. “Loki.”

Loki sighed and opened his eyes. “Are you not bored of this yet?”

“Bored of what?” Tony asked.

“It doesn't matter what face you wear, what form you take. You cannot break me again and you know it.” Loki stated. “You cannot use people against me that have no meaning in my life.”

“Loki, you're bleeding out all over my floor and you're making no damn sense.” Tony resisted the urge to shake him again. “Why aren't you in a jail cell in Asgard?”

Loki rolled his eyes at him. “Fine. You want to play this game again. Ask your questions and see where they get you.”

“What are you doing here?” Tony asked.

“It would appear The Others latest fantasy scheme for getting me to spill my guts is to pretend to throw me to my enemies.” Loki began. “Chained up and half dead, easy pickings even for a human such as Stark. He is hoping that I will give up the location of the tesseract in exchange for not being murdered by Stark.”

Tony gaped at him. “Ummm.” Was the best he could come up with.

“I must say, of all the Avengers he could have picked to have you impersonate. That he chose Stark says more about his short comings than it does about mine. That green beast would have been a more obvious choice, but perhaps it was his inability to control Stark's mind that makes the Iron Man so fearsome.” Loki shifted, his chains clanking and a pained look flashed across his face. He pulled himself up into a sitting position as carefully as he could.

“I'm Tony Stark.” Tony informed him.

“Yes, yes and I'm a Prince of Asgard.” Loki snorted. “Lets not bother pretending shall we. I know you are just an illusion created by the Chitauri in an effort to get inside my head, but as I have told every one of you to come before. My mind cannot be broken. I admit, it is my fault. The Other got in once, however briefly and that set a precedent, but I can assure you that will not happen again.”

“The Other was controlling you?” Tony asked.

“Of course. Finding out your whole life is a lie and falling into the void was bound to rattle anyone's mental shields and unfortunately The Other was able to slip in and take control while I was not myself. It was only through sheer force of will that I was able to subvert his plan to conquer Midgard by rallying those Avengers together. I regained enough control over my mind at the end to throw the game, but even I'll admit it was all a little too close for comfort. If big green hadn't given my brain a good rattling when he did, it would have been all over for Midgard.” Loki chuckled. “Now your guy.” He pointed to Tony. “He was a lucky break for all concerned. “If The Other had been able to use me to take over his mind... well, I think it would have gone a whole lot worse for Midgard.” He tilted his head and looked at Tony. “I wonder how he did it?”

Without thinking Tony pulled down the zip on the fleece hoody he had on, revealing the arc reactor embedded in his chest. “The sceptre hit this instead of me.”

Loki's eyes went wide and he held his hands up in front of himself. “Oh no.” He gasped. “No. No. No.” He scrambled to his feet, wobbling as he stood.

“What is it?” Tony asked. “What's wrong?”

“I don't know how Stark did it.” Loki exclaimed.

“I just told you how I did it.” Tony answered.

“Exactly.” Loki backed up a few steps. “The only way you could tell me something I don't know.” He paused and there was fear in his eyes. “Is if you're not one of The Others illusions, but are in fact, the real Tony Stark.” His eyes darted towards the broken window. Just as he turned to run Tony darted forwards and seized the chain linking Loki's hands to his waist.

“Hold it right there.” Tony demanded, pulling Loki back towards him with the chain.

Loki turned and sighed. “Well, I suppose I did tell you to kill me and I think I actually would rather it was the real you than an illusion.” He stepped towards Tony spreading his arms as wide as the chains would allow. “Do you need me to wait while you get the suit? I know I'm rather hard to kill, but the Chitauri have made a damn fine start and I can give you a few good suggestions of things that should work.”

Tony gaped at him some more. “You're bleeding on my rug.” He said at last and Loki looked down at his feet where drops of blood were falling from somewhere about his person onto the cream rug on Tony's marble floor.

“My apologies.” He shrugged. “There's really no way to kill me that won't involve blood on the rug. Better that than it getting into the seams of the marble though."

Tony shook his head and huffed out a breath. “This is ridiculous and I must be out of my mind. Wait there.” He released Loki's chain and hurried off down the hall. He returned a few moments later with a pair of bolt cutters.

Loki smiled. “Lacks finesse, but I guess we can work with it if that's all you've got.”

“These are for the chains.” Tony replied pointing to the coffee table. “Sit.”

Loki perched himself on the edge of the table and held his hands out to Tony who snipped the chains free and then the cuffs themselves. “Where are you bleeding from?”

Loki shrugged again rubbing at his wrists. “Hard to say really. Everything that isn't numb, hurts.”

Tony shook his head and put down the bolt cutters. “For fuck's sake.” He sighed turning towards his bedroom. “Follow me.” As he crossed the room his trainers crunched on the glass from the broken window and he shook his head again. “Jarvis. Penthouse on lock down. Highest level.” He heard Loki's boots crunching on the glass a few paces behind him. “Done, sir.” Jarvis confirmed.

Tony went straight into his en-suite bathroom. It was bigger than the one in the guest bedroom and it was the one with the medical supplies. He turned to face Loki as he limped in the door. “Strip.”

Loki arched an eyebrow at him.

“Don't look at me like that. You can keep your boxers or whatever it is you lot wear, on.” Tony rolled his eyes.

Loki carefully peeled off what was left of the black shirt he was wearing and unfastened his battered leather jeans. He then attempted to bend over to untie his boots but hissed in pain and stopped.

Tony sighed and stepped towards him, grabbing his arm gently he guided him over to sit on the side of the tub and then knelt down and untied his boots, pulling them off along with his socks. He stood and helped Loki to his feet also, holding him up with one hand while he pushed down the stiff leather with the other. Once his jeans were down to his thighs, Tony pushed him back down to sitting and peeled them the rest of the way off. Stepping back he threw the jeans aside and turned to look at Loki gasping in shock as he did so.

Loki was a mess. His entire body was bruised and coated in dried and not so dried blood. His chest criss-crossed with slice marks. Some fresh and still oozing blood, others older and partly healed. His thighs were dotted with what looked like puncture marks, one of which was dripping blood steadily.

Tony stepped slowly towards him and leaned over the side of the tub to get a look at Loki's back, instantly wishing he hadn't. A deep bloody line ran across Loki's back from the bottom of his left shoulder blade to just above his right hip stopping above the waistband of his black boxers. Blood streaming down from it.

Tony stepped away his hands coming up to cover his face as he tried not to throw up. “Okay.” He took a deep breath. “Jarvis. Run some scans for me.” He turned back to look at Loki. “Okay. Nothing we can't fix.”

Loki tilted his head and looked at him curiously. “Fix it?” He asked. “Why would you want to fix it?”

“If I don't fix it you'll bleed to death.” Tony stated.

“Your point being?” Loki enquired. “Look if you don't have the stomach for it, give Barton a call, or his girlfriend. She's an assassin right? I'm sure they'd be more than happy to take care of me for you.”

“No one's killing you Loki. Why the hell would you want them too?” Tony asked turning away to look at a monitor on the wall where Jarvis was displaying the results of his scans of Loki's wounds and advising which ones would need stitched and which could make do with a dressing.

“Why wouldn't they?” Loki murmured. “I controlled their minds, I destroyed your city. I led an alien invasion that almost cost your entire planet its lives and I murdered your friend, Coulson.”

“Yeah, well the Coulson thing smarts, but you told me you were being mind controlled yourself.” Tony replied digging about in the drawers under the sink pulling out medical supplies.

Loki shook his head. “I should have fought harder against The Other. I should have made him kill me, or killed myself.” He stared down at his hands. “It was not my intention for Coulson to die. When he blasted me with that weapon of his, it rattled my mental shields and The Other was able to gain more control over me. He was the one in control when Coulson was killed, but no matter. It was my fault for not holding him at bay. Your conscience would be clear if you killed me. It was my lack of control after all that lead to his death.”

Tony turned back and stared at him. “Let me ask you something.” He arranged the medical supplies on the counter. “If The Other hadn't been able to at least partially control you. Would the invasion still have happened?”

“Oh yes.” Loki agreed. “He had many plans and other puppets.”

“These other puppets though.” Tony queried. “They wouldn't have been able to subvert his plans the way you did?”

“No.” Loki frowned. “As you saw with Agent Barton, the control was absolute. Agent Romanov was only able to release his mind after I gave her the clue how.”

“The blunt force trauma?” Tony asked.

Loki smiled. “Indeed. A service your Hulk was able to provide for me, which was what properly freed me from The Others control.”

“Right. So without you being the one leading the invasion and secretly manoeuvring all of us into the best defence. The earth would have been doomed?” Tony looked Loki in the eye.

“Quite likely, yes.” Loki nodded. “You were the only ones capable of stopping the invasion, but you needed to be brought together.”

“So, if you saved the planet and you weren't in control of your actions when you killed any of those people.” Tony frowned. “Why do you think you deserve to die?”

“The Other will not rest until he either has control of my mind, or I am dead. He thinks I know where the tesseract is. I don't in case you're wondering too.” He shook his head sadly. “I would rather be dead than his puppet and my previous attempt to escape him as you can see did not go so well.”

“He's dead.” Tony stated and Loki's head whipped up.

“What?” He demanded.

“The Other is dead. Some group calling themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy took him out.” Tony smiled. “The Chitauri must have panicked and dumped you here once they found out.”

Loki stared at him open mouthed. “I'm free of him?”

“Yep.” Tony started the shower running. "Now get in the tub and lets get you cleaned up so I can stitch you back together.”

Loki swung his legs slowly over the side of the bath and hesitantly got to his feet in the tub. Reaching out a hand to lean against the wall.

“Shit.” Tony sighed looking at him holding himself up on the wall. “Get those boxers off.” He unzipped his hoody and hung it on the back of the bathroom door before toeing off his trainers, then pulling off his socks and jeans leaving on his boxers.

He turned back to the shower where Loki was standing naked leaning heavily against the wall. Tony climbed into the tub behind him and reached past him to grab down the shower head. He turned Loki until he had both hands on the wall and then pointed the shower head at his back. Loki hissed and let out a small squeak of pain, his head falling forwards to press against the tiled wall.

“I know.” Tony whispered moving the spray back and forth across his back. “I'll make this as quick as I can.”

When he had washed as much of the blood off Loki's back as he could with it still being an open wound, he dropped the shower head into the tub and jumped out, manoeuvring Loki to sit on the edge of the tub his back facing outwards. Grabbing a towel he quickly dried the worst of the water from his own body before gently wiping the wet from Loki's back. He grabbed up the needle and thread from the medical supplies on the counter and turned back to Loki.

“This is probably going to hurt.” He apologised.

“No more than it did when it got like this.” Loki shrugged and Tony set to work stitching the slash back together. It took forty minutes and eighty seven stitches before Tony was done and apart from the occasional hiss of pain, Loki hadn't reacted. Tony got him to stand up in the tub again and rinsed the last of the blood from his back. He then spun him around and set to work rinsing the blood from his front. Loki leaned back against the wall. The tiles cool against the burning sensation from the wound.

When Tony had most of the blood washed off, he again hopped out of the tub and gave himself a quick rub with the towel. He then patted Loki's chest and stomach, glancing back to Jarvis' scan results to see which of these smaller slashes needed stitched. Thankfully there were only two.

He then moved on to Loki's thighs where he stitched up the deepest puncture wound. After a final rinse in the shower, where Tony ran the spray over his head to wash dried blood out of his hair, Tony applied sterile dressings to Loki's other wounds and then wrapped a thick bandage all around him until every wound front and back was covered followed by bandages around each thigh leaving him looking part mummy.

Lastly, he got a wash cloth and gently cleaned Loki's face of all the dried blood before wrapping a towel around his long black hair to stop it from dripping everywhere. Helping Loki to his feet he handed him a dry towel to wrap around his middle and then led him out of the bathroom into his bedroom. Plonking Loki on the bed he trotted off into his walk-in wardrobe.

First he slipped off his wet boxers and towelled himself dry before pulling on a pair of lounge pants and a tank top. Next he rummaged around until he found a t-shirt and sweatpants that were a little big for himself and carried them back through to the bedroom handing them to Loki.

Loki rubbed the towel over a few places that were still damp and slipped on the clothes. When he stood to pull up the sweatpants, Tony flipped back the covers on the bed and indicated that Loki should get in bed. Loki gave him a confused look but complied.

When he was in the bed, Tony flipped the covers up over him and asked Jarvis to turn off the lights. He then crossed to the other side of the room and sat down on a small sofa that was over by the window.

“Get some rest.” He said to Loki. “I'll be over here if you need anything.”

Loki wriggled down a bit in the bed and then piled up all the pillows on the bed behind himself so that he was half lying half sitting. “Thank-you Tony.” He whispered.

“No worries.” Tony replied sliding down on the sofa until he was sprawled out comfortably.


	2. Why aren't you sleeping?

“Yinsen, NO!” Tony yelled, jerking upright his heart hammering in his chest as he panted for breath in the darkness.

“I'm here, sir.” Jarvis stated. “You're safe in your bedroom.” The lights came on slightly, casting a faint glow around the room.

Tony heaved a shuddering sigh and ran his hands over his face. “Just a nightmare. Thanks Jarvis.”

He glanced around trying to figure out what he was doing on the sofa before remembering Loki was in his bed. He looked across at the bed and saw Loki watching him.

“Shit, did I wake you? Sorry.” Tony mumbled.

“I was not sleeping.” Loki replied. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, sure.” Tony sighed. “You?”

“I've had worse days.” Loki chuckled and Tony couldn't help a smile.

“Why aren't you sleeping?” Tony asked.

Loki shrugged. “I prefer not too.” He met Tony's eyes. “I think you understand why.”

Tony huffed out a laugh and stood from the sofa. “You want a coffee?”

“I have no idea what that is.” Loki replied.

“Well then. You're in for a treat. You feel up to joining me in the kitchen? I'd bring it to you, but I don't know how you take it.” Tony crossed to the bed as Loki threw back the covers. He helped Loki to stand and then kept him steady as they walked out of the bedroom.

They both paused as the lights came on and they caught sight of the smashed window and the scattered glass. Tony smiled. “That's twice you've cost me a window mister.” He steered Loki around the far side of the room so that they could make it to the kitchen avoiding the glass. Thankfully, it was summer and it wasn't raining so the broken window was no big deal for now. Tony would get someone to fix it in the morning.

 

“Are you trying to poison me?” Loki asked a short while later after he took his first sip of black coffee.

Tony laughed and handed him a bottle of milk. “Try adding some of this.”

Loki poured some milk into the mug and tried again his lip curling as he stuck out his tongue. “Better, but I still don't see why anyone would drink this stuff."

Tony handed him two sugar cubes and a teaspoon. “It has caffeine which helps you stay awake.”

Loki dropped the sugar cubes into the mug and stirred before taking another sip. This time he smiled. “Ah, much better.”

“Good, come on.” Tony led Loki back through to the living room where he glanced at the sofa. It was surrounded by glass. “Hmmm.” Tony frowned. “Maybe not.”

He headed back through to the bedroom, Loki following behind.

Loki got back into bed with his mug of coffee and Tony went around and sat down on the other side of the bed. He swiped one of the pillows back from Loki and folded it behind his back. “Jarvis, TV please.”

A TV slowly slid up from the foot of the bed and blinked on to a music channel. Tony thought for a moment. “Stick on The Fast and the Furious would ya.” The TV went blank for a moment and then the movie began. The lights in the bedroom dimmed a bit further and Tony snuggled himself into the covers glancing across at Loki who was sipping his coffee.

 

When Tony awoke a few hours later, Jarvis had turned off the TV and the lights. That meant he had been asleep for a while. He almost jumped out of his skin when he heard a whimper coming from the other side of the bed but then he remembered Loki was there.

Tony was lying curled on his side facing the opposite way from the other side of the bed so he couldn't see Loki, but he could hear him mumbling under his breath, although Tony couldn't make out the words, it sounded like Loki was pleading with someone. “No!” He cried out and without thinking Tony reached behind himself. When his fingers touched Loki's arm he rolled over onto his back and slid his fingers down until he felt Loki's hand.

“Shhh.” He whispered. Slipping his fingers into Loki's hand. “I'm here.” He gave Loki's hand a squeeze. “You're safe.”

Loki went quiet and after a few moments, his fingers tightened around Tony's. A short while later and they were both sleeping deeply hand in hand and for the first time in a long time for both of them, it was peaceful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stick with me. I'm going somewhere with this. Not entirely sure where yet, but somewhere.


End file.
